What is Elon Musk's Net Worth?
Elon Musk is a South African-born Canadian-American businessman, inventor, and investor who has a net worth of $204 billion. Elon Musk is currently the richest person in the world. In November 2019, when his net worth briefly topped $340 billion, Elon surpassed John D. Rockefeller to become the richest person in modern history.
The vast majority of Elon Musk's net worth comes from his 13% equity stake in Tesla, approximately 412 million shares. He also owns 304 million exercisable options in Tesla. Combined, that equates to roughly 21% of the company. Elon has pledged 58% of his Tesla shares as collateral against $3.5 billion worth of personal loans and in 2022 he sold $40 billion worth of Tesla shares to fund his purchase of Twitter.
Elon is also the co-founder of SpaceX and the Boring Company and is the chairman of SolarCity. Elon owns 43% of the privately-held SpaceX. SpaceX was valued at $180 billion at its last valuation round. As of its last valuation round, the Boring Company is reportedly worth $5 billion.
In October 2022, Elon acquired Twitter for $44 billion. He owns roughly 79% of the company at an overall valuation of $44 billion. Twitter's private valuation under his ownership has nosedived, perhaps to as low as $19 billion. As we stated previously, he sold $40 billion worth of Tesla shares in 2022, primarily to fund the Twitter purchase.
KEY FACTS
Sold first company Zip2 to Compaq in 1999 for $340 million
Invested a portion of his windfall into X.com
X.com became Paypal. Paypal sold to eBay in 2002 for $1.5b
Owns 43% of SpaceX which is valued at $180 billion
Owns 21% of Tesla
Net Worth increased $142 billion in 2020
Once testifed that he his "cash poor" and has $500 million worth of debt
Once owned $100 million worth of real estate
Sold six LA homes in 2020
Salary & 2018 Compensation Plan
Elon Musk does not earn a salary as CEO of Tesla. In place of a salary, in 2018 Elon arranged to receive a highly unusual and potentially very lucrative bonus plan tied to the company's market cap milestones. When the plan was forged, Tesla was worth around $50 billion. In very simple terms, according to the plan, Elon would receive large chunks of Tesla options, equal to 1% of the company, every time the company increased in market cap by $50 billion, and stayed there for at least three months. The first chunk of options were granted once Tesla hit a market cap of $100 billion. Elon received another of the tranches every time the company increased its market cap by $50 billion, up to $600 billion. So in other words, if Tesla's market cap increased to $600 billion, Elon would receive options equal to 12% of the company. He would have received zero compensation if he had not achieved any of the 12 tranches. Oh, and he had a 10-year term limit for the deal.
It took a year for Tesla to cross the first $100 billion level. Two years later, in December 2020, Tesla's market cap crossed the maximum $600 billion level. FYI, one year later it topped out at $1.23 trillion. At that level, Elon's net worth hit $340 billion. That's the point where Elon's net worth was temporarily $340 billion. Tesla's board confirmed that by hitting the $600 billion mark in under 10 years, Elon was entitled to the full benefit of his compensation plan. That meant he received around 300 million Tesla options, worth around $55 billion by January 2024. Unfortunately for Elon, that was not the end of the story.